Scrolling through Pinterest the other day, I came across a phrase that caught my attention: “Music is the only thing that understands me.” Another angsty teen, how fantastic. When did it become philosophical and wise to be unable to create a personal connection with another human being? It struck a nerve on a topic that has come up a lot recently: we have become the Generation of Non-Emotion. Sure, we rant online about an upsetting circumstance, we play off the pain of a heartbreak, or joke about the possibility of dying before we achieve our dreams. By none of these means are we openly and honestly sharing how we feel. Exciting or not, we end up playing events off as actions, and not reactions. We have become unsure of where to draw the emotional lines of connections, commitments, and causes.
Social Media
“I don’t know where I lay on the spectrum because I feel like I’m on both sides of it. Like I’m scared to trust people, but I also share too often.” – Melina
In a world of social media where we can know things about people in an instant, we often still try to act as if we don’t know the people when we talk to them in person. They just got their little for their sorority or their basketball team won a championship? Wouldn’t mention it. I go to a university with many people, some of which I have never met in person, yet we like each others’ Instas, favorite each others’ Tweets, and share each others’ Facebook posts. However when we see each other in person, no recognition is visibly detected. We act like we aren’t aware of each other because technically we are “strangers”. Shouldn’t social media be an extension of our connections, not just a place for popularity and façades? We feel the need to be constantly linked in without much personal investment.
Texting can create an even bigger gap between emotions and people. We will analyze the context and tone of a conversation without looking at the meaning behind the matter. Take emojis for example: a picture is worth a thousand words. We place so much of our time and energy trying to discern the significance between a red heart versus a blue heart that we overlook what the person is actually trying to say.
Social media and texting can leave out the true values and foundations of a person. You can’t tell the way their face lights up when they get passionate about a topic, the sadness in their voice when something is hurting them, or the way their eyes can tell an entire story without a word having to be said. All of these are based on empathy and feeling. Communication over a screen allows us to skip over the sometimes uncomfortable face-to-face talking, but will never compare to true human interaction.
Relationships
“Our generation is terrified of commitment because it means you have to take the risk of getting hurt but ultimately that’s the choice you have to commit to if you want to feel fulfilled emotionally and have a successful relationship.” – Hadley
The boundaries between friendship and partnership have become especially blurry with our generation. No one knows what’s really going on because no one wants to allow themselves to put enough emotion in it to figure that out. We don’t want to be the first to step up to ask the big questions because we are too afraid that what we “have” is going to end or that having some sort of attachment to someone is going to be seen as needy and pathetic. It becomes a game of who can care the least and come out with a minimal amount of scars.
“Netflix and chill? While “hook-up culture” may be fun and all, we are destroying the idea of dating. Oh wait, you’ve matched on Tinder and you know his favorite movies and his dogs’ names? He wants you to “watch” a movie at 2 AM? Where’s the respect? Where’s the passion? Romance is becoming empty and detached.” -Christina
So many people hang out with each other, but don’t put the effort in to actually get to know the person sitting right next to them. Tinder and our supposed “dating culture” has made this astoundingly easy to do. Just swipe right on their looks and meet for a quick hook-up, which is sometimes what you want and that’s great. You can get to know as many fun facts about a person as you want, but with just this you may never find out where their values lie or what makes them tick. By emotionally withdrawing from the conversation, these relationships remain empty and without meaning.
Goals
“We are living in a time where millennials often act emotionless due to the fact that they are too afraid to admit to themselves that they feel a certain way. They nonchalantly joke or play off different topics in order to seem unenthusiastic or truly unaffected.” – Caroline
In a society that tells us that we can achieve anything we put our efforts towards, we underestimate ourselves quite a bit. You’ve probably heard it a million times: the sarcastic comment of becoming an unsuccessful old cat lady and dying alone before ever becoming something of worth (Shoutout to all the people who are living their dreams of residing with many cats though. Mad props to you.). We joke about the things that are actually incredibly important to us and are often hurtful. You didn’t get the job you prepared so much for? It’s okay; I really didn’t need a steady income, food, or a life anyways. With this self-deprecating humor, we create ourselves as our very own obstacles, setting road blocks as the detour to our self-fulfilling prophecy. Admitting what we want and putting our desires out there makes us responsible for our actions whether they end up happening or not. Then when we do go after what we want, people put us down for it. Hardworking is seen as selfish. Driven is portrayed as heartless. Why can’t we be both loving and determined?
Instead of focusing our energy towards our truest passions, we tend to fill our plates up to the brim with jobs, events, and extracurriculars that we don’t exactly care about. Trying to multi-task our activities and goals has lead us to create even less of an emotional attachment to what we do. You can do everything, but at what cost? Multi-tasking does not give us the proper time, nor attention that it takes in order to really put our heart into something and get the most out of it.
By trying to prove ourselves to other people, we have lost our abilities to be authentic and genuine, not only with others, but also ourselves. We have become outwardly transparent to the point that our emotions have become invisible. There has been a great disconnect in our reality between the life that we want to live and the actions we are taking. We are thinking over every little thought until the idea or dream itself dies. By overanalyzing the past and planning the future, we are completely overlooking the present, which also keeps us unattached with our feelings. We are not living in the moment because we are too scared of what will happen once we let the visualized version of ourself (an image or ego) go to show the parts of who we really are. We have become the generation with high expectations and low hopes; planning for things to turn out a certain way, but often not caring enough to turn them into a reality. Then when we do care, we pretend that we don’t.
The only way we’re going to get anything out of this world is if we pour our hearts into it. Stop with the non-emotion and take some action. Get excited, get sad, get mad, get passionate, get uplifted. Be the generation that takes the opportunity to get to know a stranger. The generation that cares. The generation that pour their souls into what they do. Let life genuinely affect you. It may not be easy, but I have always found it to be worth it.